


c'mon baby, we better make a start

by fiveaces



Series: come and go with me [2]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1950s, Alternate Universe - 1960s, F/F, Fluff, Spooning, teddy boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 10:25:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18029969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiveaces/pseuds/fiveaces
Summary: Tommy lies in tangled sheets and limbs, buttery sunshine spilled diagonally across his face, and wonders how he got to this point in time, here.





	c'mon baby, we better make a start

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Everywhere" by Fleetwood Mac.

Tommy wakes up to his nose buried in the nape of Alfie’s neck, snuffling absentmindedly at the soft hair that curls gently there, and thinks that he’s dead. 

Slowly, he becomes aware of his senses: his toes digging reflexively into the mattress with the stretch of his limbs, the hot morning air of Birmingham summers heavy on the lungs and making his shirt stick to him on the stretch of skin between his shoulder blades. Alfie is still there, back-to-chest, the steady _thump thump thump_ of his heart beating underneath Tommy’s hand.

Tommy lies in tangled sheets and limbs, buttery sunshine spilled diagonally across his face, and wonders how he got to this point in time, here.

Hair. 

He had stumbled across Alfie, after the fateful meeting at the store, in the hair salon he comes to for his cuts. Alfie was sat there on the worn black chair, hair damp, and chatting, quite amiably, with Mr. Hayes.

Tommy had stopped dead in his tracks, one hand on the silver handle of the salon’s doors, ready to bolt, but he had been given strict instructions to get Finn a decent haircut, the poor lad was already passing more for a mop than a boy, and it wasn’t like Alfie would remember him, right? It’d been days since that encounter, there are plenty of other people in Birmingham. Plenty of other Tommys to bother. 

But then Alfie’s eyes had slid to meet his on the water-stained mirror and he had grinned, Tommy clearly remembers that smile, all dimples and white teeth. 

He had stuck to Tommy like a leech after that. Everywhere Tommy went, he’d see Alfie: in the chippy where the Shelbys get their meals for most of the week, in the park after hours mucking around with teenagers Tommy’s never heard of let alone seen, even in the fucking cinema bathroom at a showing for some film Tommy’d been reluctantly dragged to by Arthur. 

Now, they are here, in his bed well after morning. Alone.

Tommy’s heart beat picks up its pace at the thought, rising to his throat and making the blood rush to his ears and eyes. His head feels woozy, but Alfie is warm from where Tommy is hugging him from behind. Faintly, Tommy wonders how they’d managed to get themselves into this position.

He remembers, very distinctly, instructing Alfie that they ought to sleep top-and-tail, it was already suspicious enough that Alfie was sleeping over in the first place, Tommy rarely let people he knows into the house let alone his room. But they’d been drunk, high on nicotine and cheap liquor pilfered from some store he can’t recall in his half-asleep state, and they’d been stumbling along the dark towards Small Heath before Tommy could think any better of it at the time. 

“My sister’ll murder me in cold blood if she saw I was drinking,” Alfie had informed him gravely, eyes wide and earnest, his stubble scratching Tommy’s cheek from where he was rubbing his own affectionately against. Tommy had been endeared at the time.

Alfie continued. “She doesn’t mind my drinking, but not this late at night, and definitely not in a new place, you know,” he had gestured vaguely to the cobblestone streets and shuttered windows, the soft glow of street lamps. “To keep appearances and all.”

“Yeah,” Tommy had slurred, and felt giddy at the weight of Alfie’s arm draped across his shoulders, fingertips brushing against the side of Tommy’s bare arm. It was a warm, muggy night, and it was easier to slip off that jacket rather than keep it on. Now, Tommy regrets that, thinks that if it weren’t for that barely there brush of fingers against skin, none of this would have happened. 

But it has, and Tommy is still lying here, tangled up with Alfie, and anyone could walk in at any given moment. There is no sense of privacy in the Shelby family. 

The bed creaks, Alfie moves in his arms. Tommy opens his eyes that he hadn’t known were closed in the first place to meet with Alfie’s. Blue-grey, maybe with some hints of green. Hard to place them exactly, they’re always shifting in colour, unlike like Tommy’s, which look like porcelain doll eyes, easy to shatter.

“Hullo,” Alfie says, voice low and sleepy, rough. They’d screamed themselves hoarse last night, out near the shipyard, for which they had no reason at all to be at except that Tommy had wanted to take the longer way home. “Good morning.”

Tommy lets out a breath, scrunches his nose at the staleness of it, at the cotton-wool feel of his mouth. His tongue feels heavy, rubbery. “Good morning.”

“New day,” Alfie says, twisting around to peer at the window. The sunlight slants across his eyes and makes him squint, but he doesn’t do anything besides that. Tommy’s arms are still around him, their legs are still twisted together underneath the sheets, bare toes touching. “A bit late, though, isn’t it?”

Tommy nods, makes a noise that fits in with what’s been said. Alfie’s the talkative type, he never shuts up, ever. But mornings seem to bring a different side to him. His movements are slower, careless, none of the deliberate touching. He’s sloe-eyed and smiling, just a bit, head turned to rest next to Tommy’s on the same pillow. 

Tommy searches for a word to describe this Alfie, tries to discard the sharp-edged ones he usually uses. He needs a round word for morning Alfie. Something clear and simple, something content. _Content._ Alfie looks content.

“Do you want to stay for breakfast?” The words are out of his mouth before he can say anything else, like telling Alfie to head on home. There’s no need for such politeness, Alfie knows what type of person Tommy is. Maybe that’s the problem. 

Alfie looks at him for a long time, mouth slack, nothing happening with it. A hand comes up, hot and heavy, to rest on the outside of Tommy’s leg. “Sure.”


End file.
